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Notes -
I was, in my younger years, a true believer in the Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace as laid down by John Perry Barlow.
Of course, I didn't know until much later that even then there were people who disagreed very strongly with him and essentially knew deep in their bones that the internet would only facilitate larger organs of control. Two of the most infamous hackers of their generation, Acid Phreak and Phiber Optik of legendary MOD/Legion of Doom fame proceeded to prove this by doxing John Perry Barlow and extracting his credit information.
John Perry Barlow referred to them, in his own words, as "little nihilists":
They met in real life and came away mutually more peaceful for it, but time has proven Acid and Phiber more correct than John Barlow. The Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace now seems dated and pitifully naive in a world where governments openly use the internet to enact increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks on each other while gating off the series of tubes as befits them, and the right to be forgotten is sold online as a service.
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